THE NEW ARTS TELECENTER EAST IS SD&A’s STATE-OF-THE-ART PHONE ROOM IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN ATLANTA

Located in a charming historic building in the vibrant Fairlie-Poplar district, ATC EAST offers a personal touch not found at large, off-site call centers. This boutique phone room emulates the proven, on-site campaign model that has been generating revenue for SD&A clients since 1983.

Supervised by an experienced campaign manager and staffed by callers who are expertly versed in the arts, ATC EAST provides a cost-effective solution for arts organizations that are unable to host an on-site campaign.

ATC EAST callers are divided into teams, and each team is dedicated to specific campaigns, allowing us to capitalize on each caller’s proven skill sets and their expertise in various artistic disciplines. This fosters a strong allegiance between our callers and the clients they serve – almost as if the callers were working at the client’s home location.

Equipped with the latest technology, ATC EAST is powered by our propriety lead management software, which dramatically increases the efficiency of our campaigns, boosting contact rates by 20% to as much as 100%.

SD&A has conducted many successful campaigns for our clients at ATC EAST. Our increased capacity at the new location provides the opportunity to partner with new organizations to help them meet their revenue goals.

Dr. Gloria Horsley is Founder of Open to Hope Foundation, a community where people can find hope after loss through forums and more.

(Republished from Forbes.com. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.)

From operations and technology to marketing and fundraising, there are many trends shaping the nonprofit sector that I’ve seen firsthand at my own foundation and in the strategy we’ve laid out to achieve in 2016.

It’s important to start looking ahead to the new year when you are in the throes of annual budget planning. With that in mind, here are some of the areas our organization is focusing on based on key trends that your nonprofit may also want to consider:

Humanize Your Marketing

Many marketing trends for traditional businesses have become important for nonprofits too, which also need to improve engagement with their audiences and donors. While we have to be sensitive in terms of the stories we share, storytelling will become one of the most important marketing tools for us in 2017 because it provides a way to connect with the emotions that help drive donor engagement and ongoing support. Our audience is then able to feel how they are assisting those that come to our nonprofit for help and that then drives them to continue providing financial support and time.

Live streaming video is a great way to tell these stories as well, using Periscope, YouTube Live, and Facebook Live. Another approach for this authentic storytelling is user-generated content. We plan to make this an even larger portion of our content marketing in 2017 just for the very fact that it offers a way to personalize those stories and have them resonate more with our audience.

Influencer marketing will also take on a larger role, as we can rally advocates of our nonprofit organization to endorse what we are doing with their social circles. The result is that the trust that these circles place in these influencers can move them to act and become donors and volunteers themselves. Next year will be about identifying those influencers and then building up relationships with them to create awareness.

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Use Mobile Technology To Simplify Donations

Mobile is a favorite of our donors, just as it is for many people when they are looking to communicate and participate with others. That’s why we plan on using more mobile communication, particularly with emails that now tend to be opened more often on a smartphone or tablet versus anywhere else. We are also planning on taking advantage of integrating a payment button directly into our emails to increase donations. This idea may be taken a step further, as another new trend is accepting payments through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.

Combined with a greater use of mobile wallets among our donors, we believe 2017 may deliver increased donations if we leverage all this technology and offer it so the ease of use stimulates the willingness to give more money more often.

Seek Fresh Perspectives And A Human Connection

One of our main goals in 2017 is the trend to look year round for board members that can provide fundraising and networking expertise. Specifically, we’re looking to millennials and Generation Xers who are focused on social causes and are well-connected with others who are passionate about social good. We’ve started focusing on both groups within our donor pools and using networking sites to identify candidates who can provide a fresh perspective to our board.

With all the online opportunities we have available to us, it’s easy to think that technology is the only way, but the need for authenticity in 2017 also means a return to the basics and a focus on the humanistic aspect of being and running a nonprofit. For my organization, this back-to-basics approach is focused on creating a culture that is in touch with human emotions and is run by a skilled staff that is enthusiastic about what we are trying to do. Our focus will also involve personal contact with our donors, including in person and by phone, to make that human connection even stronger and more authentic.

We are pleased to announce that our Atlanta-based phone room, Arts Telecenter East, will soon be moving. The new and improved ATC East will open in January in the heart of downtown Atlanta’s Fairlie-Poplar district, close to Centennial Park, the Rialto Center for the Arts and the Balzer Theater at Herren’s.

Located in a historic building constructed in 1930, our new space is larger and much nicer than our current phone room. It will be equipped with the latest phone technology, offering us increased capacity and greater efficiency.

SD&A operates two Arts Telecenters: ATC East in Atlanta and ATC West in Los Angeles. These intimate, fully computerized, “boutique” phone rooms emulate the proven, on-site campaign model that has been generating revenue for SD&A clients since 1983. Supervised by experienced campaign managers and staffed by callers who are expertly versed in the arts, ATC campaigns provide a solution for arts organizations that are unable to host an on-site campaign.

SD&A’s National Call Center now handles a large portion of Greenpeace’s calling programs, and we are also developing new monthly programs for the organization, including cold calls, welcome thank you calls to new monthly givers, and outreach calls to current sustainers to dissuade them from cancelling their monthly gifts. At any given moment, there are 12 to 17 active Greenpeace campaigns running on our dialer!

Greenpeace is the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.

Ilonka Salisbury, a customer service expert with over 30 years of experience training fundraising and marketing professionals at some of the nation’s largest performing arts organizations, has teamed up with SD&A to conduct specialized training workshops in the art of Holistic Customer Service, a technique that transforms the effectiveness of, the cohesion between, and the very essence of outbound calls, inbound calls, and face-to-face interactions with patrons at the box office.

Experience tells us that arts organizations can create new customers and increase sales through relationship building and conversation. This is Ilonka Salisbury’s core focus and area of expertise. “Don’t just make sales,” she instructs. “Make customers for life.”

Holistic Customer Service emphasizes empathy and personalized connections based on the commonalities that make us human. Kindness, graciousness and gratitude are the guiding principles of this methodology. It is rooted in the simple notion that all of us, no matter who we are, respond positively to being treated with respect, and consequently, wish to continue being a part of any such relationship.

Our training workshops are customized to align with your specific organizational goals. The tools that your representatives will be given are not scripted responses; rather, our workshops offer intuitive insight into how your representatives can tap into their own natural instincts to best serve the needs of the patron and the organization.

understand who they are speaking with (and when to use or not use jargon).

develop the patience required to let customers say whatever they need or want to say.

pick up on the subtleties of the dialogue instead of diving right into the sale (by listening to what patrons are not saying).

use positive, engaging and active language versus passive language.

answer questions without sounding obnoxious or off-putting.

eliminate inhibitions.

effectively diffuse a conversation if it escalates.

strengthen their attentiveness, knowledge of the product, and passion for it.

Our training workshops are designed to give your organization a working foundation in the philosophies and best practices of Holistic Customer Service, which can be used for the ongoing training of current representatives and for future hires as well.

WHYY is Greater Philadelphia’s leading public media provider. In the current issue of its membership newsletter, Connections, WHYY promotes the value and importance of SD&A’s telemarketing services. Three of our top-notch telephone agents from the National Call Center are featured in the accompanying photo (left to right: Gina Holmes, Wayne Harpe and Clarence Tolliver).

Why is WHYY calling me?

Telemarketing at WHYY is one of the many ways we engage and involve our members. Our goal is to actively converse with our members in a non-invasive way. This safe, secure fundraising tool is used primarily to renew memberships, make additional gifts, fix lapsed memberships, update credit information, welcome new sustainers and offer sustainer upgrades. These campaigns help to provide support for the programming that you enjoy. We invite you to pick up the phone and join the conversation!

After nearly a decade of stellar service as an SD&A account executive, Joanne Scheuble has come to realize that her magic number is 10.

“Lately I’ve been joking that I’m on the ten-year plan,” she said during an informal interview on her next-to-last day with our company. “I worked at Boston Ballet for ten years, I worked for myself for ten years, I’ve worked for SD&A for almost ten years, and now it’s time for the next thing.”

Long before she joined the SD&A account services team, Joanne was one of our clients. She served as Boston Ballet’s director of marketing for just over a decade, during which time she built a solid business relationship with SD&A and a deep admiration for the work our company does on behalf of nonprofit organizations.

“I’ve met so many wonderful people at SD&A,” she said, “and the people are interested in what I’m interested in, which is raising money for arts organizations, and that’s been a really great experience for me, working with so many like-minded people.”

As for the next ten years of her career, Joanne said she plans to rekindle her independent consulting business. In between her lengthy stints at Boston Ballet and SD&A, Joanne spent a decade as the president of her own marketing, research and communications firm, which helped to facilitate campaigns for a wide variety of high profile clients, including AIDS Action Committee, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Fidelity Investments, Fleishman-Hillard Communications, Lincoln Center, and many more.

She added: “I also would really like to return to teaching English as a second language, which wasn’t easy to do with my travel schedule at SD&A, so I’m happy I’ll be able to do that again.”

Earlier in her career, Joanne spent time in the television industry, working as the director of promotions for an NBC affiliate in Northern New England. It was a small, non-union station, which gave her a chance to branch out. Not only did she occasionally operate the camera for the 6:00 news, but she also did some on-air reporting. Then came the job opportunity that altered the entire trajectory of her career: director of marketing at the Dartmouth College Performing Arts Center.

“I had been promoting television, you know, a lot of stupid sitcoms and stuff, and then I got a chance to promote the classical concerts and plays and dance performances that were coming to Dartmouth and it just really changed my life. I thought, ‘Wow, I’d much rather be doing that than promoting re-runs of M*A*S*H or whatever we were doing.'”

While working on behalf of arts organizations will always be a part of Joanne’s life, there are certain aspects of her job at SD&A that are irreplaceable. Like… ” Mike Ruiz—he makes me laugh every day. It’s really great to work with a stand-up comic like him. And Ilonka, of course, who brightened my day every day by calling me “darling”.

Joanne said she’s also going to miss the callers. “We have a woman who comes to work every day in a different Bon Jovi t-shirt; she’s one of our best callers. And then there’s the candy-taster for Mars; that’s his part-time job. He has a very sensitive palate, screened from thousands of people. He can decide whether the candy tastes exactly like it should according to the formula. We have musicians, playwrights… There’s always a fresh story and a wide variety of creative and colorful people who work for us and I’ve enjoyed that a lot.”

As Joanne prepares for her “Next Ten” adventure, we want her to know that the dedicated service she has provided to SD&A and its clients over the “Previous Ten” will not soon be forgotten.

“Joanne is a consummate professional, always cool under fire and a critical thinker,” SD&A President Steve Koehler said. “She’s a tremendous team player who is well respected and liked by her peers. Outside of work, I will always remember our visits to Broadway Theatre where we saw Memphis and Kinky Boots, sometimes with a stop at our favorite French restaurant, Chez Napoleon. Joanne will be missed here at SD&A. We wish her well in her future endeavors and hope we run into her from time to time.”

With Hillary Clinton becoming the first presumptive female presidential nominee for a major party this week, I’ve been feeling especially proud of the active role that SD&A has played in the success of her campaign. In addition to the outstanding fundraising calls we make on her behalf from our National Call Center, we recently had an opportunity to roll up our sleeves and support Hillary’s campaign in a different and altogether exciting way.

Caroline Mendez and Aurelia Friedman (second row on the left behind Hillary Clinton) at Nevada Caucus victory rally in February 2016

On Saturday, February 20, I got up long before the crack of dawn and joined three other members of SD&A’s National Call Center team for a five-hour road trip from L.A. to Vegas. We were headed there for a rare and untraditional type of party: to help our client win the Nevada caucus.

Once we got to Hillary’s Nevada campaign headquarters, we were immediately immersed in the urgency and excitement of the race. Everyone was running in all different directions, making sure everything was covered. We were told to meet one of the precinct captains at a local middle school and help guide supporters to the caucus site. Once we arrived there, we found out our precinct captain was Wendy Greuel, a former Los Angeles City Controller and Councilmember. We instantly felt at home and got into the groove of what we do best—making the strongest pitches possible on our client’s behalf. We talked to all types of people and got to experience firsthand the broad diversity of Hillary’s base.

Cindy Davis and Aurelia at caucus site

Later in the day, we went straight from our caucus volunteer site to Secretary Clinton’s official victory rally and were brought up on the stage right behind her. We started getting phone calls from our call center colleagues saying that they saw all of us on CNN! Dionne Johnson, one of our campaign supervisors, got a great picture with Hillary that she sent to her mother in Arkansas. Cindy Davis, another one of our campaign supervisors, got a photo with Hillary as well and found out the next day that a picture of all of us on stage behind Hillary had been published in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. Caroline Mendez, SD&A’s vice president of client services, referred to the experience as one of the happiest moments of her life. The energy in the room was exhilarating and I felt like I was part of something that mattered.

Aurelia and Caroline at victory rally

At SD&A, we take every action with our clients foremost in mind and it brings us great satisfaction when we see our fundraising efforts come to life. The funds that our callers raised over the phone for Hillary’s campaign were used to pay for the lawn signs that we put in front of the caucus sites (a few of which now proudly hang from the ceiling of our call center), the t-shirts we wore at the caucus and the victory rally, and the stickers we distributed to Hillary’s supporters.

We are proud to have had the opportunity to join our client, Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on the campaign trail, and we are looking forward to raising even more money on her behalf through our National Call Center to help ensure her victory in November.

As an account executive in the National Call Center, my job is to ensure that our clients receive the best fundraising services possible. I am responsible for the success of their campaigns, for identifying and solving any problems that might arise along the way, and for maintaining optimum performance metrics from start to finish. To help our callers hit their specified goals, we encourage them with positive incentives, whether this is in the form of bonuses, my homemade brownies, or some friendly competition among colleagues.

Until recently, I had “talked the talk” about performance, but I had never actually “walked the walk”, so I decided to lace up my boots and spend some time making fundraising calls alongside our professional calling agents. To be honest, I was reluctant to do it at first. Since starting my job at SD&A, I have listened to and monitored countless phone calls and was intimidated by the amount of rejection that callers must face on a daily basis.

With each contact, I gained a newfound appreciation for what our callers do. I had worked as a phone bank volunteer on various political campaigns in the past, but the types of fundraising calls we make in the National Call Center are not so simple. Passionately conveying the client’s cause and need for support was easy to do with the donors that were similarly engaged, but for donors who were not as receptive, it was a challenge to keep them on the phone long enough to make the case. A typical phone call can last anywhere from a few seconds to 15 minutes. The “no” calls are much shorter than the “yes” calls, but the task before our callers is not only to pitch the donors appropriately, but to also leave them feeling happier with the nonprofit organization than they were before the call, regardless of whether or not a gift is secured. The art of a proper fundraising call has everything to do with maintaining that balance.

Out of twenty-six contacts, I successfully secured three gifts. When I got off the phone, supervisors and callers gave me high-fives and hugs and my colleagues felt more intrigued to try it themselves. I felt a sense of accomplishment, knowing that I contributed to the success of this campaign as both account executive and caller, while also helping to further increase morale and energy in the call center. What our callers do every day requires a lot of strength, resilience, and knowledge, and putting myself in their shoes helped me gain a new perspective on fundraising.